Selected Videos Of And Commentary About Some Classic Folk, Roots, And Americana Songs

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Scotty Wiseman's "Brown Mountain Light"

North Carolina is yet again the setting for this week's song, and for once (as contrasted with "Tom Dooley" and "Poor Ellen Smith" and possibly "You're Gonna Miss Me") the topic is not a murder but rather an interesting paranormal phenomenon, one that has inspired a series of local legends and one often-covered country song, if you can excuse the Gone With The Wind-type attempt to romanticize slavery (a very big if, obviously).

Sightings of the mysterious "Brown Mountain Lights" have been verified back to 1922, though stories surrounding them apparently go back at least sixty years earlier to the Civil War era and maybe before. Brown Mountain is near Linville, NC, and that estimable town provides a fine and comprehensive brief history here:

Perhaps a little background information is in order here for readers who have never heard of the lights. Brown Mountain is a long sloping ridge on the edge of the Blue Ridge lying within U.S.Forest Service land at an elevation of some 2,600 feet.... One of the three main viewing points of the lights is at a roadside pull-off on highway 181. The other two look outs are at Wiseman’s View...and the Lost Cove Cliffs overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway (milepost 310).Since their first recorded sighting by the German engineer Gerard de Brahm in 1771 thelights have attracted scientific scrutiny. Explanations for these mobile spheres of glowing light have ranged from nitrous vapor to ball lightning, from foxfire to a fourth form of energy known as plasma. The U.S. Geological Survey conducted an investigation of the lights in the 1920s, publishing findings that dismissed the lights as man-made... About the only thing that most experts can agree on, however, is that the lights tend toappear in late summer and autumn on cool evenings following some rainfall. Those fortunate ones who have seen them speak of the experience as wondrous and unforgettable. Mention the topic ofthe lights in just about any gathering in the Blue Ridge and cries of “Have you seen them?” and vivid anecdotes will swiftly follow.

Without further ado, the star of the show - from a few years back, one of several good videos of the lights on YouTube:

The song was one of the last that was penned by Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame member Scotty Wiseman (1908-1981), who partnered for most of his career from the mid-1930s til 1958 with his wife Myrtle Eleanor Cooper under the name "Lulu Belle and Scotty." (pictured above) They were regulars on The WLS Barn Dance broadcast from Chicago in the 30s and 40s - I've mentioned the program before as the main competition in the vast mid-section of the country for Nashville's Grand Ol' Opry. Wiseman wrote a string of hits that included "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" (the country number recorded by Jim Reeves, Rick Nelson, Elvis Presley and many more - not the Rod Stewart/Van Morrison song), and Cooper contributed the classic "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?" to the American song bag. The duo retired in '58 when Wiseman completed an M.A. from Northwestern University and went on to a teaching career; Cooper ended up as member of the NC House of Representatives.

"The Brown Mountain Light" song apparently dates to the early 50s. According to the Linville village web page cited above, Wiseman heard the legend of the slave and the lantern from his great uncle Lafayette "Fate" Wiseman, a drover born well before the Civil War and the man for whom Wiseman's View above is named. Great nephew Scotty always liked the story and came up with this:

I'm a bit more inclined to cut Wiseman some slack about the "faithful old slave" bit than I am for Hollywood depictions, both because of his own pre-modern 1908 birth date and because he was re-telling the story as he and others had heard it from Uncle Fate. But I still get more than a little uncomfortable with any attempt to romanticize slavery in the U.S., especially in the century after it was abolished. GWTW is in most respects a great movie, though unfortunately the somewhat dignified and Academy Award-winning portrayal of the house slave Mamie by Hattie McDaniel is counterbalanced by a truly vicious stereotype in the younger girl played by Butterfly McQueen ("I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies"). I treated the subject at greater length when I wrote about the spiritual "My Lord, What A Morning" last October.

Sonny James' #1 country hit version has been removed from YouTube, but shortly after James's rendition Tommy Faile had a rockabilly-tinged hit with the song:

The 1962 date of James' hit suggests that it is the immediate antecedent of the 1962 version by the Kingston Trio:

The KT also seems to have borrowed James' idea for the narrative opening and that guitar lead in. John Stewart is doing a really creditable banjo arrangement here - which gets all but lost in the awful horns- and percussion-littered cut on the '62 Something Special release.

The Country Gentlemen also did "Brown Mountain," though I cannot find a date in their discography. It seems not to predate the KT's version, though the latter group freely borrowed material from the Gentlemen's first few albums, including "Jesse James", "Long Black Veil", and "Poor Ellen Smith". They do a classic bluegrass arrangement here:

Finally, two non-professional but really good folkish versions, first by Ronda Foust of Tennessee doing a clawhammer banjo accompaniment:

That's a fine banjo performance by Ms. Foust, and it shades the country composition toward folk wonderfully. She mentions that she first heard the song from the Kingstons.

And a bluegrass jam session, from Townsend,TN in 2008:

That's Bruce Fox on mandolin and lead vocal. I love to hear folk-styled music this way - being able to join in sessions like this is one of the chief attractions of going to the Trio Fantasy Camp in August each year. We'll have to see how many folkies remember and like this one when we assemble again in Scottsdale this year.

Addendum - July 2012

Just found this gem - bluegrass master of everything Tony Rice from a few years back:

...it's a rare treat to find a teacher in any field, whose passion for his subject is happily contagious.Jim Moran is such a teacher, and the legend of the Brown Mountain lights is another example of his mastery of his craft...thanks, Jim...

I'm blushing, jim ...a thousand thanks for so kind a comment. And Dale - it turns out that I knew more Scotty Wiseman songs than I thought I did when I was researching this - quite a writer as well as performer.

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About This Site

Comparative Video 101 is a resource for performance videos of some of the classic popular folk songs of the last several decades with personal commentary on them by Jim Moran, a teacher of literature for nearly forty years and a folk musician and writer for a decade longer. He is also co-host of the "Roots Music And Beyond" radio program on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles.Some of these posts appeared originally on the Kingston Crossroads message board, and many of the profiled songs were performed by the classic pop folk group the Kingston Trio.The page will be updated once or more per month.Your comments are welcome.

Use the Google Search Bar above as you would use the Google web search. Enter the name of a song or artist, press "search," and the results will appear showing every mention of your search term in the 150+ articles on this blog. An alphabetical index of song titles is coming soon; until then, the Google Search This Blog will substitute for it.

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Since Blogspot/Google has recently begun including readership statistics as part of its service to bloggers like me, I have become aware that the readership for these pages is far more extensive and international than I had ever dreamed, usually approaching 1,000 visitors per week from literally all around the world. I am profoundly appreciative of the interest in these posts and glad that folk music fans find enjoyment and value in them.

There are currently nearly two hundred articles here, and nearly all of the twelve hundred posted videos in those articles are from YouTube. Most readers will already know that because YouTube is another subsidiary of Google, the latter company is being sued for copyright infringement by a significant number of content providers like Sony-BMG and Warner's Music Group. YouTube/Google's normal response to infringement claims is to remove the disputed videos or ban them from certain countries in which the claims have been filed.

This, of course, has a profound effect on the content of posts like the ones in this blog. Videos that I have selected for any given article can be and often have been removed at any time without warning. I try where possible to replace deleted videos with other versions of the same performance or with similar renditions of the songs, though this is not always possible.

Policing the hundred plus posts to be sure that there are interesting and representative video performances is itself a major undertaking, one that involves a significant commitment of time. I hope that those of you good enough to stop by this blog will have a bit of patience. I review as many of the older articles as I can every week with the goal of maintaining the integrity of each, and sometimes this enables me to find newer, better, and more exciting performances of the songs profiled here.